


Till All Aches Are Embers

by Esmeraude11



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, Second Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27205735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esmeraude11/pseuds/Esmeraude11
Summary: Elros was gone.He had chosen the Gift of Men. His was the choice of Lúthien. He would never walk through the front door of the house she had built in Dor-Rodyn. She would never meet the woman he had married. Never get to see the children he had welcomed into his life. The grandchildren that had filled his heart with the same joy that he and his brother had given her.Elrond was still parted from her and Elwing could only hope and pray that he would choose to sail someday.
Relationships: Eärendil/Elwing (Tolkien)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	Till All Aches Are Embers

"I thought...I thought that we were going to be killed. I thought..." Elwing struggled to speak. To breathe. Tears tightened her throat. Grief clung to her as thoroughly as the sea spray to her dress each morning. "Eärendil, forgive me. Forgive me."

"I forgave you long ago, dear heart." Eärendil's voice was gentle. His hand warm as it lay between her shoulder blades. "You forgave me for my abandonment of you.”

"You did not intend to leave me. You were seeking your parents in Dor-Rodyn and aid from the Rodyn. You meant to return."

"And yet I did not. Not in time. Elwing...." Her husband's gaze was soft. His eyes filled with a familiar sadness. "It is long past time that you forgive yourself."

"Our son is dead. Our son does not know us." She could hear the rasp in her voice. The delicate rattle of air slipping from her throat as she curled into herself. Her forehead pressed against the wind-worn fabric of Eärendil's tunic. Elwing could taste the scent of wood and tar that clung to his skin. It stuck to the back of her throat. His hair, tied low and flung messily over his shoulder, was coarse with salt against the curve of her cheek. The pale golden strands caught in her fingers as she dug them into firm muscle.

The sound of the gulls crying seemed to echo her grief in the skies beyond her home.

It had been built against a cliff. The fine white limestone had gone into the creation of the house she called her own. A small settlement had sprung up around it as those of her people that could be counted among the dead had been slowly released from the Halls of Mandos and come to settle within the lands she had, in her grief, claimed.

The cliff face was home now to many small burrows and nooks that had taken shape at the mercy of her sorrow-filled songs. Many songbirds had made their homes within them. Birds that Elwing would normally say had no place in such spaces. The little creatures were drawn to her, however, and would remain by her side much as their brethren had oft remained by her grandmother’s.

She would gladly admit that the early years of her stay in the sheltered seaward cove had been filled with ready entertainment. Her songbirds had quarreled often with the native gulls of the region. Both had sought the cliff-side nooks and crannies for their nests and her mornings had been filled with the sight of birds wheeling above and below and alongside exposed stone for desired nesting spots.

Elwing could not say if her people would remain at her side in the future. Her father and mother had not yet been released from the Halls. There were few among the Sindar who believed that her great-grandfather would be re-embodied before them.

She had been told that guilt and grief weighed heavily on his spirit.

Many among the Sindar said that the King of Doriath took comfort in the company of his old friend, the King of the Ñoldor, as such she would likely remain Lady of the Sindar and Queen of Doriath-in-exile until her father's return.

Perhaps then she would know where she stood amongst her people.

Elwing did not know if her father would desire his crown and title back. Nor did she know just what he would wish to be called.

Their people, the Sindar, clung to the past. They sought assurance in old titles and names. Her father may or may not desire the same.

Elwing could not say.

She could only act as was required of her and hope for the best.

There were many who still saw her as the Princess of Doriath and the Sindar. As Dior's youngest child and King Elu's surviving heir. They had named her Queen of Doriath and Lady of Beleriand as soon as they were released from the Halls. These were the elves that had fallen in the Hidden Kingdom.

Those of her people that had fallen in the Havens in turn referred to her as Queen of the Sindar and Lady of the Havens.

The chosen name of their little realm was still under spirited debate in the public meeting hall that had been constructed at the center of their settlement. Many desired that it be named for Doriath. Others thought that the cove should be named for the Havens and the sea it bordered.

Elwing did not see them coming to a decision any time soon. She did not know if the Sindar who had slowly joined her would wish to rejoin her parents but she was grateful for their presence and continued support nevertheless.

A tall lovely tower had been built at the top of the cliff overlooking both the wide brilliantly blue sea and the steadily growing village camped within the cove.

Every morning was spent walking up a slow winding path from the base of the ridge to its top. A handsome door greeted her upon the completion of her small journey. The wood had come from the maple trees that shadowed the river that had cut a winding path through white limestone to empty into the sea and created the cove in the process. They were beautiful trees and grew tall and fragrant in the way that was pleasantly common in Avon and so rarely seen in Beleriand.

The door had been a gift from Queen Eärwen for Elwing and Eärendil.

Swans spread their great wings over a wide endless sea. A shoreline so distant as to be nonexistent. The sea churned and frothed underneath them. A tiny glimmering ship seemingly bobbed along into the distant horizon.

A great amount of detail had gone into the images construction. Pearls and shells had been polished and ground and set into wood. Delicate veins of lapis added color and definition to the water. Pale aquamarines, deep blue topazes, and dark shimmering sapphires twinkled from their settings within the fine grained wood.

It was beautiful. Perhaps a touch too ostentatious for what should be a simple external door. But such was the way of the Eldar of Dor-Rodyn.

Certainly a work of craftsmanship fit to be seen among the Noldor. But the Queen of the Ñoldor had commissioned the piece from craftsmen of renown among the people of her birth.

She had, Elwing remembered, smiled. Understanding shining within queer lamp-stone eyes. The sight altogether sweet and sad. An old bitterness had clung to the corners of her lips as she commented in a voice that echoed a song of wine-dark seas and a grieving people standing knee-deep in murky fouled waters that it was enough to have a home built by the Ñoldor.

No matter that the buildings were of Elwing's own personal design. There was no need for the entirety of Elwing's hearth and home to have been built by the hands of a people that she had only ever known terror from.

The knowledge that Eärendil had thrown himself into the task at hand had made the presence of his forefather's kin more bearable. But the Queen, his great-aunt, she had understood and Elwing had seen that understanding mirrored in the subtlest of ways.

Large white stones had been raised from a nearby quarry. The same white as the cliffs her house sat against. These became the walls of both her achingly empty manor home and her lighthouse. Its roof, and the roofs of many of the houses in the Sindar's new settlement, was made of a pretty blue stone. Near marble-like in texture and appearance. It ranged from a dark blue-black to a purer lilac in color and the Sindar had delighted in decorating their spaces with them.

These had been cut, carved, sanded, and polished by the Glinnil stonemasons that had been leant to her at Eärwen’s gentle suggestion to her father.

A vein had been discovered nearer the woods to the west within her chosen realm by the Noldor that King Olwë had sent for. A gift, he had said, for the great-grandniece he'd only just met. She could only smile and agree.

No matter that these Noldor were entirely unlike the ones that had attacked the Havens. They were men and women with the same grey-hued eye and features that carried more than a passing familiarity with the Fëanorean soldiers of her memories. She had, however, been surprised to see a fair number of green and amber eyed elves among them. To find faces as fair as the Fëanorean host with blond hair and grey eyes.

These, she had been told later, were the sons and daughters of the Minil that had intermarried with Ñoldor of Dor-Rodyn in the wake of Queen Indis’s marriage to King Finwë. They were the same as Eärendil and she remembered the easy and interested manner in which they had interacted with him. He was, regardless of his royal heritage, simply another blond-haired Ñoldo among their number.

They were the finest craftsmen among the Elves of Dor-Rodyn. The finest left among the followers of High King Finarfin. King Olwë's son-by-marriage. Eärendil's own great-granduncle. They had mined and shaped the stone for her home and the tower whose addition she had insisted upon.

A lighthouse to guide Eärendil home. To brighten the skies around her in the dark of night. To make her stay seem a touch less lonely.

Elwing could not deny that her home was too large by far.

Long hallways.

Sweeping staircases.

Echoing floors and wide windows.

All things that her caretakers could not afford to build in the Havens of Sirion. Eärendil had breathed life into her wishes and wants. His mother had been a skilled architect and had taught him as much of the arts that had constructed the White City of Beleriand before she had sailed. Seeking for her husband’s sake the land of her birth.

The house he had built her was beautiful. It would withstand a siege with an ease that the Sindar built homes within the Havens could not. Her people for all their skills could not claim the same prowess and powers that a Noldor prince could. Certainly not one of King Turgon’s line and trained in the arts that had built Gondolin. His was the mind that had constructed the Hidden City and seen it endure centuries in a war-torn land, after all.

She had not been able to quiet the smallest hope within her heart in those days that one day it would no longer be quite so large and empty. Elwing had dreamt that her uncle and cousin and their families would join her. Her sons with them.

She knew better now. Celeborn was a lord of elves far inland and beyond the shattered and sunken remains of Beleriand. Oropher was a king and had joined his people with those who called themselves the Tawarwaith. Her sons would never rejoin her.

Not together at least.

Elros was gone.

He had chosen the Gift of Men. His was the choice of Lúthien. He would never walk through the front door of the house she had built in Dor-Rodyn. She would never meet the woman he had married. Never get to see the children he had welcomed into his life. The grandchildren that had filled his heart with the same joy that he and his brother had given her.

Elrond was still parted from her and Elwing could only hope and pray that he would choose to sail someday.

There were days when she could not bring herself to return to the echoing quiet of her house at the base of the cliff. Her home was, more often than not, the Lighthouse's compact little apartments. Tight and confined. Filled with whittled bits of wood and spun threads ready for embroidering. Loose dust and wood shavings littered her workspace in small piles from countless hours spent carving and smoothing hand-sized pieces.

"By all accounts Elros was happy. He died surrounded by family near and dear to him." Eärendil's voice was hoarse now. With grief. Regret. Elwing could not discern the emotion within. But she could feel them as surely as she felt her own. His lips pressed, warm and wind-chapped, against the crown of her head and he continued. "Elrond is happy. He is married, the elves from Mithlond say, and his home is filled with laughter. The Enemy does not trouble them in the little haven that he has built for himself."

"I am glad." She felt the grief, ever present and yawning, press at the cage of her breastbone with every beat of her heart. And she was. Glad, that was. Nevertheless, she could not help the feelings that thrummed through her at the loss of her sons.

Elros had died and she had been unable to sit at his side. His had been the choice of Lúthien and he was lost to her now as surely as Lúthien was to her great-grandparents.

He had had children. Children that she would never meet. One had been named Tindómiel in the tongue of the people who had stolen him from her side.

She could not forget that it was also Eärendil’s mother-tongue and the language of the Gondolindhrim that had once followed him and his mother and who must now surely follow Elrond on those distant shores. For her last living child was as much a prince of the Noldor as he was a prince of the Sindar.

Elros's decision to enshrine the dialect of the elves that had taken him from her within the culture of the kingdom he had founded was a pointed one.

It spoke of the feelings he must have had for the Fëanorians. The elves that had raised him and his brother. Men that had completed a task that should have remained with his parents not the people that had absconded with them.

But he had honored her in his only daughter's name and Eärendil in the name he had given his eldest son.

A nightingale and a jewel yet lived in the Land of Gift.

And yet... Elros had chosen to walk a path that honored the Fëanorians as well. A young and vibrant kingdom that sought knowledge and answers to all the questions that could be asked under the stars.

Perhaps it was in the nature of Men and their interactions with the Noldorin kingdom of Lindon. Elwing, however, could only compare it to that which she knew. And the Men of the Western Gift resembled the Noldor in such a heartbreaking manner that could bring nothing but grief to her heart.

He had been happy. And Elwing would never know the man that he had become.

There was some small part of her, a part that was mean and petty and grieving, that wished to lay blame upon the Sons of Fëanor for her son's decision. But...it had been his choice. None could force a child of the line of Lúthien to do anything that went against their own desires.

It would be wrong of her to deny him his choice.

Elrond had chosen the Path of the Elves.

Elros’s choice had lain with the Gift of Man.

Could she deny him his choice when Eärendil had given her his? Her choice had been her own heart’s desire and a selfish one that had allowed her to keep her husband. Had she any right to resent Elros the path he had chosen to walk?

"I am glad, Eärendil. I am glad and yet my heart weeps. And I...why do I grieve so? He was happy and that should be enough. It should be enough and yet it is not."

_Why do you not weep as I do. Why-_ She could feel the questions bubbling up within her. They sat at the tip of her tongue and weighed heavily upon her mind.

It was terrible enough to have thought them knowing as she did that he might hear. She could not bear to speak them aloud and have them stain the air with their bitterness.

She felt his sorrow wax and wane in tandem with her own and Elwing tilted her chin up, pressing a kiss to her husband's jaw in silent apology. Eärendil’s arms tightened around her. His mouth sought hers out and he deepened the kiss for a fleeting moment.

"I do grieve, Elwing." His voice was soft and firm as he spoke into the space between their lips. "I am grateful that his life was happy in spite of all the terror and horrors of his youth. I am glad that the Fëanorians were kind to him in those by-gone days of captivity. It was never what I would have wanted and I will always grieve what was lost to us. But my heart rejoices too for Elros lived a life all his own and resides now in that unfathomable place beyond the circles of the world where all Men's spirits must go. "

"Eärendil. I-" She felt distress spark within her at his words and hastened to speak. Eärendil pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth and continued once she had quieted.

"Do not misunderstand me, my love. Some part of me will always wonder. My fëa will always ache for the fate of the Children of Man. But I do not regret my choice. For it was my own and in the end how could I choose anyone but you? She whom I had in ignorance and innocence both named 'daughter of moonlight' by the mouth of the River Sirion.

"He is gone and our grandchildren might very well walk the same path. We may never have the pleasure of meeting them and I will always mourn that. But Elwing. He was _happy_. He was happy and it is alright to feel as you do. For he was your son, same as mine. The manner of your grief is no greater or lesser than my own. He was our son and we had only a few short years with him. We were parted on such unhappy grounds.

“Should the Fëanorians be found repentant and remorseful of their actions and allowed re-embodiment for a chance to atone their fell deeds. Should they be able to atone for them. It will have changed nothing. For we will always be haunted by our loss and should Elrond sail for Aman, his brother will not be beside him. Elros will never again step foot into our home and we will still have lost our son when he was but a boy."

Eärendil was smiling now. His eyes bright with the light of the Silmaril that he had carried for these last centuries. He was a vision of beauty in his sorrow and tears clung to golden eyelashes like dew as he met her gaze.

But there was a tentative joy shining within the Mariner. A strength that bolstered his shoulders in the wake of his grief. Eärendil stood before her. Tall and proud. An Elven prince as beautiful as any of the lost kings and princes of Beleriand. Strong and unbent as his father Tuor was.

Elwing wavered there. Her eyes fixed upon his. Her hands pressed firmly against skin-warmed cloth.

"Elros was happy." It was as much a reminder to herself as it was a statement of fact. She returned his smile and sighed softly into the gentle breeze her grief had stirred. "I am glad. Truly. And I pray that his children and their children will have blessed lives in the Land of Gift, his Númenor, should that in-turn be their choice. But I shall always wonder." Here her smile turned bleak and Elwing looked away.

Her husband's gaze softened. He pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her temple and hummed low in his throat.

"Such is the fate of the Peredhil, I suspect." _We who linger on these shores will always struggle with the fates of those who have chosen another path._ His voice echoed clearly within her mind and Elwing allowed herself to take comfort in the gentle touch of his mind against her own.

Eärendil had come about his gift with osanwë naturally for all that he was one of the few members of his family outside of the House of Finarfin to do so. It had become stronger in the years that had followed his decision to plight his troth in marriage to her.

The power of the Silmaril had strengthened his reach all the further. As had her own influence upon his mind and fëa.

It was a comfort knowing that she would never truly be alone now.

Elwing could always reach out and know that Eärendil would be there in mind if not in body. Eärendil himself often made use of the unusual strength of their bond to share glimpses of sights that only he and his crew could see as Vingilot sailed across the star-strewn heavens above Ennor.

"He was a king." She tilted her chin up and tracked the movement of Anor far above them. The fruit of Galadlóriel sat heavy and golden-red in the center of a cornflower-blue sky. "He ruled a land that was fair and free."

"His mother was a queen." Eärendil's voice filled with a gentle warmth. Grief fading into the background as he pressed a calloused palm against the small of her back. "She is the lady of a people fair and free."

She smiled at that and met his unflinching gaze.

"Is she?"

Eärendil grinned, an impish curve touching his lips as he leant forward a touch.

"She is. A white-clad lady unrivaled by any in might or in beauty. She is lovelier than even the silver flower itself. A fair compliment, I should say, for all know that mariners love none more than Ithil.” Eärendil paused. A smile tugging at his lips as he peered down at her. “She is the fairest maid in all the land and fairer yet for she is my wife."

Eärendil’s mouth met hers in a gentle kiss and she could not help the smile that graced her lips. His eyes still red-rimmed and shiny with unshed tears, her husband dragged his fingertips up the knobs of her spine. His lashes were long and beautiful. They glimmered golden underneath Anor’s light and she sighed once more.

It, unfortunately, only encouraged him.

"Elrond is a lord." Elwing leaned into his touch and pressed her forehead against his. A smile tugging reluctantly at her lips as she stared into her husband's eyes.

"A fair lord indeed for he is his mother’s son!" Eärendil laughed now. His voice still tight with grief but a balm to her soul nonetheless. His eyes crinkled at the corners in well-trodden lines as he smiled.

Eärendil’s eyes, normally a lovely blue-tinged grey, gleamed like brightest silver in his happiness. He pressed a chaste kiss against her lips as he pulled her closer to himself. As though they were not already so close as to be one person.

"His father is fairer yet for the Mariner-Prince is my husband." Elwing faltered then in the midst of this sweet moment. Her joy wavering as she stared up at the man before her. "I miss him. I miss them both."

Eärendil's mouth twisted unhappily and he sighed. His hold tightened around her the moment her own regret curled within her mind and he kissed her once more. As much a gentle rebuke as it was a comforting gesture.

"I know. I miss them as well. But there's naught we can do about it now. Elrond may yet join us here. His children with him should he have any in Endor. We will be reunited someday and that day will be filled with all the tears and joys of ages spent apart." Her husband’s fingers combed through the wispy curls at her nape and Elwing could hear the smile in his voice as he turned away. His face tilted towards the East. "I suspect that these feelings will never fade. But I pray that we will find some measure of happiness here."

"I am afraid." _Afraid of...._ Elwing trailed off within her own mind. And Eärendil's eyes filled with a quiet understanding.

"Afraid of replacing them?" _Do you truly think that our sons would begrudge us our happiness? That they would resent the possibility of siblings in any measure?_ His voice was filled with a gentle warmth. The sound akin to the cresting waves that had once washed clean the sides of his ship. The taste of starlight and cold darkness echoing within the mental vowels of his words.

"Would they see it as such?"

"We could never replace one child with another." Eärendil’s voice deepened and hardened as his brows wrinkled in a rare show of displeasure. "Nor would I wish it." _I do not think they would see it as such, no._

A song of rumbling skies and churning waters rang bright as bells in his voice to her ears. There was a light so bright and fierce in his eyes that Elwing could not help but wonder if this was how his grandfather, noble and doomed Turgon, had looked in his final moments in fair Gondolin when confronted with the destruction of that which he held dear.

She could not bear to look away. She had rarely seen Eärendil so overtaken with passion and it was as captivating a sight now as it had been then.

"One day Elrond will return to us. And..."

"Perhaps he will come to Aman and find a bright and happy home. One filled with laughter and moonlit smiles rather than grief and a cloying sadness."

A vision teased at the edges of her mind. Elwing could not say if it was touched with foresight for it was a nebulous gift and difficult to discern at the best of times even for one such as she. It was, nonetheless, a beautiful dream.

Elrond stood in the Lighthouse’s doorway. He was tall and fair. She could have easily mistaken him for herself if not for his height and the breadth of his shoulders. Those were his father’s.

Elwing could see hints of her husband in the man before her. His long dark hair was braided and bound in the manner of the princes of the Noldor, however. While Eärendil was likely to keep his hair tied in a simple mariner’s tail or leave it unbound and unadorned in the manner of the Sindar.

Her son’s eyes were filled with emotions she could not name as they stared at her. Ithil's soothing white light washing over her entryway and casting shadows into deep contrast.

A woman, silver-haired and lovely and oddly familiar, at his side dressed in the colors that she had come to recognize as belonging to the High King of the Ñoldor in Tirion. Though her gown resembled the cut that Queen Eärwen tended to favor rather than the high fashions of the City of the Ñoldor. A ring sat on her finger. Delicate silver and sturdy mithril to match the ring on Elrond's left hand. Both of such exquisite quality that they could only be Noldorin in nature.

Eärendil stood before them. A smile tugging at his lips. His eyes were bright with happiness and a child sat upon her husband's strong shoulders. Dark hair tumbling over narrow shoulders as they peered down at Elrond and the stranger.

She could not say if the child was male or female. But she could see herself in their face. Melian's influence lingering in yet another child. In the shape of their face, the color of their hair, and the light in their eyes.

But they had Eärendil’s beautiful wind-spun curls. His smiling mouth and laughing eyes. They had Elrond’s unfaltering gaze and she could Elros’s own sweetness in the child.

The vision was a lovely thing. It filled her with hope.

"Perhaps." Elwing could not help the smile that tugged at her lips then. Nor could she stop herself from pulling Eärendil into a kiss this time.

Her father might return someday. Her mother and brothers as well. Perhaps not. Elwing would always mourn what had been lost. But she would hope for the future too.

Elros was lost to her. To them. But Elrond would join them in the Uttermost West some day in the distant future.

Elwing would always grieve and she was right to do so. As her husband was in his hope and unfailing belief.

But... there was a glimmer of light in the darkness.

She would be happy someday.

Maybe not now and not always. But she would be. And there might yet be fair voices and sweet faces tumbling about within the wide echoing halls of her home at the base of the cliff.

Laughter would someday fill the still air of the lighthouse and lift stone dust and wood shavings in gentle whorls and eddies of joy.

Eärendil was here and they would never be parted.

None would invade their home now for a fair blood-soaked jewel.

Eärendil would come and go but he would always return in the end. She need not fear him lost to the sea. The Silmaril would light his way and the song her heart sang would always lead him home.

Elwing reached up and with gentle hands cupped her husband's face. She met his gaze and smiled with all the sweetness his love and her own happiness could muster.

_I love you._ Her words echoed the song of the nightingales and the gentle rustling of river-reeds swaying in a warming breeze.

Eärendil's mouth softened into a crooked smile. The silver of his eyes fading into a gentler cleaner shade of blue all too reminiscent of the waters that surrounded their home.

"And I, you."

They were here. They would wait. She could be content with that. Happiness would come in the future and might deem itself ready to stay one day.

The present was bleak but a light gleamed in the distance. It whispered of long-awaited reunions. Elwing could only hope that they would one day be reunited with Elros but she would look forward to the day that Elrond came westwards on a grey swan-necked ship.

She had waited so long already…

She could wait as long as was needed. So long as she had Eärendil at her side. Elwing turned in her husband’s arms and pressed herself against his side. Her eyes sought the distant horizon where the sky met the sea and she breathed a gentle sigh of contentment.

"We will be here."

_Always._ A promise within his voice and she could feel the determination that unfurled within him.

They would wait as long as it took for there was no hurry. She would take comfort in that and she suspected that Eärendil would as well.

That was alright.

Elwing would shoulder his burdens as readily as he did hers.

It was no true hardship.

The Enemy was defeated and though the Free Peoples of Ennor yet fought his lieutenant the greatest of threats had been beaten and locked away. The monsters forged of his corruption, gone with him. Eärendil had slain the Great Dragon himself. Elrond might still die in the Hither Shores but it was no longer as certain a fate. He might choose to sail rather than be forced to return through the Halls.

She could wait.

She would wait for his return.

The future awaited them all and she would meet it with eyes turned always to the East and a mind in-tune with her husband's.

Elwing would be the first at the docks of the Swanhaven to welcome her son to Dor-Rodyn. But she would graciously accept second-best only to Eärendil.

Elrond would come and their home would no longer be quite so empty.

Yes. Elwing would await that day eagerly with her heart in her throat and her eyes fixed upon the clear blue skies and the trembling blue waters of the sea by her home.

**Author's Note:**

> It is late and I have work later. But goddamn it if I wasn't going to get this finished and posted today.
> 
> God. I have so many feelings about Elwing and Eärendil and their grief and expression thereof. Also just them in general. This whole fic is a love song to grieving and accepting your loss and moving on. As far as you can move on at least. Cause grief never truly fades and goes away.
> 
> I have been informed by a friend that this fic is good shit and I hope you guys approve too.
> 
> Terminology (as used in the fic because I know I need this as much as you do):
> 
> Avon: Aman  
> Dor-Rodyn: Valinor  
> Glinnil: Sindarin name for the Teleri.  
> Minil: Sindarin name for the Vanyar.  
> Noldor: Refers to the Noldorin Exiles. Despite everything Elwing uses the Noldor's preferred name rather than Golodhrim or Golodh.  
> Ñoldor: Refers to the Ñoldor of Aman/Tirion. Elwing differentiates between the two factions by using the tilde accent for the followers of Arafinwë/Finarfin and using a regular 'n' for the faction that went to Beleriand.  
> Gondolindhrim: Sindarin term for the elves of Gondolin.  
> Mithlond: Proper Sindarin name of the Grey Havens.  
> Fëanorians: This refers to the Sons of Fëanor.  
> Fëanoreans: This refers to the faction that supported said Sons of Fëanor and/or were affiliated with them (ie. Celebrimbor's crew and unbeknownst to Elwing the Fëanorean soldiers that eventually joined up with Elrond).  
> Ennor: Sindarin name for the continent of Middle-Earth/the Hither Lands/ie. the continent to the east of Valinor. Eärendil uses the Quenyan version which is Endor(ë).  
> Anor: Sindarin name for the Sun. Also known as Anar in Quenya among the Vanyar. The Noldorin term is Vása.  
> Galadlóriel: One of the Sindarin names for Laurelin, the Golden Tree.  
> Ithil: Sindarin name for the Moon. Also known as Isil or Rána in Quenya. Depends on whether you are a Vanya or Noldo. Also probably very political in Tirion before and after Fëanor.  
> Swanhaven: Kinda self-explanatory but it's Alqualondë.  
> Tawarwaith: The Green-Elves of Mirkwood.
> 
> (Edited: ao3 ate some italics and such that were meant to make things like the osanwë speech easier to read.)


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